I think the best argument for why a cable car or even a road up Mt. Everest is impossible is that it hasn't been done or even tried that I know of. I know Nepal is a very poor country but I would think that if there was any way of improving access they would have done something to make it easier to bring in more tourists to spend money there. I don't even mean climbing permits but people who want to climb to base camp spending money on lodgings and supplies.

Sounds like a general argument against all progress. If we did things your way, we'd still be in the "round rocks" phase of weaponry since sharpening rocks has never been done.

As for the article on the Matterhorn cableway, There are three support towers, with the largest span between them a mighty 2732m.

Hmm...Hmm. If you can skip 2.7 kilometers with sufficiently strong and tough towers, maybe you could look at a map between Lukla and Everest, find good spots up to 3 kilometers apart, and then work out how you're going to get the hundreds of tons of construction equipment to them. Apparently you can just skip the glaciers.

Still tough because the high altitude makes helicopters not work very well. So I guess you just give up, there's just no possible way to get a crane up there no matter how much money or effort you were willing to go to...
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